Mary K. Wells, 79, Actress Known for Roles in the Soaps

By LAWRENCE VAN GELDER

Published: August 17, 2000

Mary K. Wells, who acted in films, theater, television and radio and was part of a writing team that won two daytime Emmy Awards, died on Monday. She was 79 and lived in Manhattan.

The cause was an infection of the colon, said her son, Cameron Richardson.

Miss Wells, whose childhood ambition was to become an actress, began her career in small roles in Hollywood films like ''Here Come the Waves'' (1944) and ''The Searching Wind'' (1946). But on the advice of a Paramount Pictures casting director who advised her that sustained performance, rather than a burst of personality, was her forte, Miss Wells moved to New York in 1948.

Arriving in the heyday of radio, the infancy of television and maturity of Broadway, she embarked on a career that endured until her retirement in 1993.

Her television credits included classics of the 1950's like ''Big Town,'' in which she played Lorelei Kilbourne, a crusading reporter for The Illustrated Press in the 1950-51 season; the ''Philco TV Playhouse''; ''Playhouse 90''; ''Robert Montgomery Presents; and ''The Milton Berle Show.''

In theater she appeared in plays like George Abbott's ''Three Men on a Horse,'' with Sam Levene and Jack Gilford; in Edward Albee's ''Everything in the Garden''; and in ''Any Wednesday'' with Gene Hackman and Sandy Dennis.

From 1961 to 1970 she played the role of Louise Capice, an upper-class suburban wife on the daytime soap opera ''The Edge of Night.'' In 1974 she joined the writing staff of the ABC soap opera ''All My Children.'' She was part of the teams that won Emmys for outstanding drama series writing for the 1984-85 and 1987-88 season.

Miss Wells, who was born in Omaha, on Dec. 1, 1920, was reared in Los Angeles by her divorced mother, Mary Ludwig Wells. Miss Wells said that from the age of 5 she wanted to become an actress, and when she grew up she managed to get an audition at Paramount, which led to her career.

Her marriage to Donald Richardson, a television director, ended in divorce.

In addition to her son, who lives in Manhattan, she is survived by a daughter, Katherine O'Keeffe of Kent, Ohio, and four grandchildren.